bekahcubed

“God helps those who cannot help themselves.”
~Charles H. Spurgeon (from my pastor’s Twitter feed)

“So Gideon gathered together an army to fight against Midian. At last, he had gathered together thirty-two thousand men. Surely that was enough to defeat Midian.”

I asked my Sunday School class if they thought 32,000 men was a big enough army.

They nodded, said that it seemed pretty big to them.

“Well, you know what God thought? God thought Gideon’s army was too big.”

I could see the puzzlement on their faces. Too big? Seriously?

“Yeah. God said that if they had that many men, they’d get proud and think they were the ones who had defeated Midian, instead of realizing that God had defeated Midian.”

One of the kids raised his hand and interjected a bit of what he’d learned last week from the book of Joshua. “But the important part wasn’t how many men they had or how good their plan was. It’s only whether God’s on their side.”

“You’re right. We learned how God defeated Jericho when the people were obedient to God’s battle plan–and we learned about how the people lost at Ai because Achan had been disobedient, even though they thought they could easily win. The important thing was that God was on their side–not what their battle strategy was.

And now, when Gideon was getting ready to fight Midian, God wanted to make sure that everyone knew that the reason they’d win was because HE was on their side. He didn’t want anyone else to think that they’d been responsible for the victory.”

I told how God whittled Gideon’s army down to 300 men, how He sent terror of them to the Midianite camp in front of them, how He ultimately won them the victory.

I’ve been struck this week with the tender mercy of God. When we think we can help ourselves, when we think that someone other than God can help us, God mercifully pares down our army, such that we realize beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was He (and He alone) who effects our salvation.

In my Sunday School “flock” meeting last night, we read in Hosea, and I was reminded again of God’s severity and His mercy when He says:

“For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
and like a young lion to the house of Judah
I, even I, will tear and go away;
I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
I will return again to my place
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
and in their distress earnestly seek me.”
~Hosea 5:14-15

Unwilling to let Israel go on pridefully playing the whore, God comes at them like a lion, tearing them to pieces until they recognize that only God can heal their wounds.

My church’s songwriters (Highland Park Writers’ Collective) wrote a beautiful piece that describes this well.

“Because He is so faithful,
He will always tear apart
Every gleaming idol
Built inside the human heart”
~Tearing Down by Christensen, McCann, Qualsett

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Every so often, something that has been brewing on the periphery pushes itself into center stage, or at least back into my attention.

Like when I just recently read an article about Joel Osteen’s equivocation regarding homosexuality and then saw the following “defense” of Osteen from Ordinary Pastor:

“At the same time, I have to call a timeout. CNN featured a story on the smiling mega-church pastor today and indicated that Osteen is being criticized by many for preaching ‘a gospel-lite.’

This is just unfair and uncalled for. There is enough fodder from the preaching file of Joel Osteen to confirm that this is simply not true.

Osteen does not preach a gospel-lite because he doesn’t preach anything near the gospel.”

~From Ordinary Pastor

That was my conclusion after reading Osteen’s Become a Better You. I wrote:

“I see no evidence that Osteen has maintained any modicum of the true gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Thinking of Osteen’s teachings (as I understand them from my reading of Become a Better You), I am struck by the relative unimportance of the controversies that often fly through my New Calvinist blogroll.

When the gospel is at stake, is it worthwhile for us to be arguing about whether John Piper ought to have invited Rick Warren to a Desiring God conference?

Reflecting on Osteen drives me in two directions that might seem to be opposite one another. First, it makes me believe in the absolute necessity of upholding the cross of Christ as the only means by which man can be saved. Yet it also makes me more tentative towards announcing differences in other doctrines to be heretical.

It makes me more willing to expose those who proclaim what is clearly false–and much less willing to oust from the faith those who disagree with my interpretation of Scripture on secondary issues.

It makes me feel that it is no time to be culling tares when there are wolves among the sheep.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.